Thermal and solar energy harvesting boost converter with time-multiplexing MPPT algorithm

Abstract

A single-inductor, dual-input, and dual-output boost converter harvesting thermal and solar energy with a novel time-multiplexing maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm is proposed in this paper. The proposed boost converter harvests energy from thermoelectric generator (TEG) and photovoltaic cell (PV cell) and applies the harvested power to the load and battery. The proposed MPPT algorithm controls the effective frequency of energy harvesting from TEG and PV cell by time multiplexing. As a result, the MPPT can be achieved using a single system clock frequency. The reduced number of required system clock frequencies can leads to power and area savings owing to the reduced clock generation circuits. The proposed boost converter is designed using 65 nm CMOS process technology and evaluated using the HSPICE simulation. The peak power conversion efficiency of the proposed boost converter is 78%.